


Contrariwise

by Enneara



Series: Reflections [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Cognitive Dissonance, Curiosity, Episode Related, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Oral Sex, Symbionts, Trills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:41:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8430457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enneara/pseuds/Enneara
Summary: ‘If our professional relationship can survive me formerly being your commanding officer and sixty years your senior, it can survive another little complication.’
After his encounter with the alternate Dax in the mirror universe, Sisko confronts his universe’s Dax to confess what happened. Her reaction isn’t quite what he expects. Post-ep fic for Through the Looking Glass.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written because Sisko’s moment of hesitation and then decidedly-not-hesitation with Mirror!Dax confused me and then intrigued me and then wouldn’t leave me alone. And then I had a plot bunny about Curzon giving Sisko advice on how to pleasure Trill women, and…behold. It looks like Sisko/Dax isn’t that popular a pairing (which breaks my heart), but if you’re into it, this is for you.
> 
> Spoilers for Fascination and, obviously, Through the Looking Glass.

“‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” ~ Lewis Carroll, _Through the Looking Glass_

\----

The day after he came back from the other universe, Sisko threw his baseball from hand to hand six times, took a deep breath, left his office, and went to talk to Dax.

‘Benjamin,’ she said in warm greeting.

‘Dax. I’d like to speak with you about something. Not now,’ he added as she stepped towards his office. ‘Later. When you’re off-duty.’

She looked at him with a curious smile. ‘Of course. I’ll come by your quarters as soon as I finish my shift.’

She was turning back to her station, but he caught her by the arm and leaned close. ‘Does it have to be my quarters? I’d rather not have this conversation anywhere Jake might hear.’

She raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry. He shook his head. _Can’t explain now._

She shrugged. ‘Come by my quarters at twenty-one hundred. I’ll have a bowl of tranya ready.’

Of course. Curzon's favorite drink. As if this wasn’t already going to be awkward enough.

*

At twenty-one hundred and two minutes, Sisko tapped the panel to request entry to Dax’s quarters. It had taken him half an hour to pick out an outfit, which was ridiculous, and he had chosen one Jake said looked good on him, which was even worse.

‘Benjamin. Come in,’ said Dax’s voice from inside.

Dax’s quarters were a record of lives and friends and fascinations that made them hazardous to enter. Sisko loved it. He edged his way past a tall Klingon sculpture he recognised from Curzon’s quarters back on the Livingston. In the process, he nearly knocked over a Bajoran prayer bowl he supposed must be a more recent gift from Kira.

He turned the corner and saw Dax. She was in off-duty clothing: a tight vest and a loose, ankle-length skirt. Her hair was down, making her look unsettlingly like her counterpart from the other universe.

‘I hope I’m not too early,’ he said, groping for something to say.

She looked at him quizzically. ‘Not at all. I said twenty-one hundred, didn’t I?’ She gestured behind her, where she’d set a bowl of tranya and two glasses on a table between the chair and the couch. ‘Benjamin. I’m sorry, but you were so cryptic earlier, I can’t wait any longer without asking what this is about.’

Sisko sat down on the couch, clasping his hands. ‘I assume you’ve read my report on my — adventure yesterday.’

Dax nodded, pouring him a glass of tranya.

‘Then you’ll know,’ continued Sisko, taking the glass, ‘that just as there was once another Benjamin Sisko in that universe, there is also another Jadzia Dax.’

‘Yes.’ Dax sat down in the chair, pouring herself a drink. ‘I was hoping to have the opportunity to ask you about her.’

‘There’s something I need to tell you first. Something I didn’t mention in the report.’ Sisko drank down the tranya in one, feeling it burn the back of his throat. ‘Dax, I betrayed your trust. I owe you an apology.’

Dax looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘In the other universe —’ Why was this so hard to say? He wiped his hand across his mouth. ‘Dax and I — the other Dax, that is, and the other Sisko — were lovers.’

Dax smiled. ‘From how awkward you’ve been acting, I thought it might be something like that.’

‘Wait. There’s more.’ He inhaled, bracing himself. ‘I slept with her. She was very — glad to see me, and I didn’t want to blow my cover by seeming — reluctant.’ He met her calm blue eyes. ‘It was a violation of your privacy, and a breach of both our friendship and our professional relationship. I’m sorry.’

Dax turned her glass of tranya between her fingers, looking into the distance like she was caught up in a scientific problem. ‘Why didn’t you just make an excuse?’

He cringed. ‘I told you, Dax, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. If I could —’

Dax interrupted him. ‘I’m not asking for an apology, Benjamin. If anybody deserves one, it’s my counterpart in the other universe. She’s the one who thought she was reuniting with her lover and instead unwittingly had sex with a complete stranger.’ Sisko opened his mouth to protest, but Dax wasn’t finished. ‘I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious.’ She leaned forward, amusement playing around her mouth. ‘You’re one of the best diplomats I’ve ever known. I’ve seen you come out of negotiation after negotiation without giving a single concession that didn’t play to Federation interests. And you’re telling me you couldn’t get through one interaction with my counterpart in any way that didn’t involve sleeping with her?’

‘I tried!’ Dax’s eyebrows rose, and she started laughing. Sisko couldn’t help joining her. He threw up his hands and slumped back against the couch. ‘And then I stopped trying.’ He fixed his eyes on the ceiling. ‘All right. Perhaps part of me was — interested.’

Dax got up from her chair and moved to sit by him. He felt the couch shift as she sat down. Still, he didn’t look at her.

‘There.’ Her voice was rich and warm. ‘Was that so hard to say?’

Sisko laughed abruptly. ‘Yes, old man. You know it was.’ He looked across at her. She was eyeing him with a wicked smile. The dissonance overtook him and he hid his face in his hands, lost in laughter.

‘Benjamin, relax.’ She leaned back against the couch, shaking her head wryly. ‘At least you were able to keep your dignity and tell me on your own terms. Thanks to Lwaxana Troi, I didn’t get that option.’

Sisko sat up. ‘Then that was —’ He stared at her. She gave him an obvious look. ‘You mean you do —’

‘Find you attractive,’ she filled in for him, with an eyeroll at his reticence. ‘Yes. I do. And I’m surprised at your surprise, frankly.’

Sisko leant towards her. ‘You really don’t understand how that would be strange to me? I mean, I just don’t get it. If Curzon didn’t…’ He let his voice trail off.

Dax smiled. ‘No. No, Curzon didn’t. But I’m not Curzon.’

‘But you have his memories. Our friendship — everything you feel for me — it’s from Curzon’s point of view.’ Sisko shook his head. ‘Even if Jadzia feels — differently, I don’t see how all that history wouldn’t get in the way.’

Dax looked up, considering. ‘There is history, of course. But for me, that makes the prospect of intimacy with you more intriguing, not less.’ Sisko stared at her. She sighed. ‘It’s hard to explain. Once you’re joined, it becomes impossible to compartmentalise feelings in the same way. I love you because Curzon loved you. But the fact that I also feel this — new dimension towards you doesn’t conflict with that. It enriches it.’

Sisko whistled, letting his head flop back. ‘I just don’t get how you can talk about this like it’s no big deal.’

Dax shrugged, stretching her arms across the back of the couch. ‘It’s not a big deal from my perspective, Benjamin. For joined Trill, it’s not unusual to have a person be a friend in one lifetime, a lover in the next.’ She touched the back of his hand, trailing her fingers lightly across his. ‘I understand that for humans, these things tend to be more rigid.’

Sisko swallowed. ‘I wouldn’t put it that way.’ Her touch was lighting him up, sending sparks down through his arm to light a fire in his belly. ‘There’s a certain — dissonance, that’s all.’

‘I’d be willing to help you work through it.’ She took his hand, fingers slipping between his. ‘If that’s something you’d find interesting.’

He pulled away from her, shifting to the other end of the couch. ‘It doesn’t matter how interesting I might find it. I’m your commanding officer, Dax. I don’t get to ignore that just because I’m curious.’ He exhaled, looking out of the window at the stars. ‘Or whatever the hell it is I am.’

Dax looked ostentatiously at the Verulian water-clock Lela had picked up in a bazaar on Tharos IV. ‘Officially, we’re off duty.’

‘You’ve been a Starfleet officer long enough to know that what happens off-duty affects what happens on. I don’t want some — misguided experiment to affect our professional relationship.’

Dax smirked. ‘If our professional relationship can survive me formerly being your commanding officer and sixty years your senior, it can survive another little complication.’

Sisko considered that. ‘You sound like you’re trying to talk me into this.’

‘Not at all.’ Dax tapped him lightly on the arm. ‘I just want to know you’re being honest with me about your reasons.’

He looked away. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m just making excuses. This is — difficult for me.’

Dax shifted closer to him. ‘It doesn’t have to be,’ she said softly.

He turned to look her in the face. He let his eyes stray to her lips. He felt again the sensation he’d felt in the other universe, with the other Dax — the gut-deep tugging that told him he wanted this. He closed his eyes. She touched his face, and he leaned into her hand. It was cold, like her counterpart’s. He remembered how her hands had felt taking off his shirt, sliding up his chest.

’This is not why I came to your quarters,’ he breathed.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘All that matters is now.’

He kissed her palm softly, and she must have taken that for permission, because the next thing he knew she was straddling him, and his hands were running down her sides to hold her by the hips. She kissed him, and he let the waves of arousal and strangeness run down him, opening his mouth so their tongues slid together. His fingers tightened on her, and she sighed in satisfaction. It was different from how it had been with the other Dax. She had been frantic with him, demanding after his counterpart’s long absence. This Dax was giving him time and space, letting him explore how far he wanted this to go. 

He broke the kiss and looked up at her. She was smiling. Her spots looked like they were shimmering, pulsing quickly from dark to light. He recognised it as a sign of arousal. Knowing he had done this, that she felt such pleasure already from being with him, pushed past his reluctance, sent the blood rushing to his cock. He traced her spots where they crossed her collarbone, and she shivered pleasantly.

‘My counterpart in the other universe,’ she said, in a husky voice he didn’t recognise. ’Was she — satisfied?’

He gave her a wolfish grin. ‘She didn’t seem to have any complaints.’

Dax laughed. ‘Lucky Curzon introduced you to Nayla and gave you some tips, or your knowledge of Trill physiology might not have been up to the task.’

Sisko winced. ‘You’re not helping my dissonance, old man.’

Dax grinned and glanced meaningfully down. ‘Doesn’t seem to be _so_ bad.’

‘Just because my body is enjoying this, doesn’t mean my mind isn’t in turmoil.’

Dax sat back. She put her hands on his shoulders. ’Benjamin,’ she said seriously. ‘We don’t have to do this, if you don’t want it.’

‘But I do.’ He closed his eyes, taking in a shallow breath. ‘God help me, I do. I don’t know why. But right now, I want to stop thinking about why and figure that out later.’

‘Good idea,’ she murmured, and pulled up his shirt.

She had him undressed before he was aware of what was happening. She lay, still fully clothed, on the couch alongside him. Her frank regard made him self-conscious.

‘So different,’ she said, but her voice was admiring.

He laughed. ‘In all your lifetimes, you’ve never been with a human before?’

‘Never with a human man.’

He frowned at her, opened his mouth, then closed it.

She grinned. ‘You want to ask if my experiences with human women occurred while I was male, or female. Go on.’

‘I would never dream of asking such a personal question.’ Her smile excited him again. He drew her close, enjoying the contrast of her clothed body to his nakedness, the cool glide of her hands on his skin: gentle, hesitant, never asking for too much.

‘Dax,’ he said, drawing back.

Her eyes came back to his face, dreamy and smiling. ‘Benjamin,’ she said, and his heart turned over.

‘I know you’re making this easy for me. You want me to be able to say no if I’m not comfortable. I get it.’

‘I’m glad.’ She went to kiss his neck, and he held her back.

‘But I want the same for you. If at any time, you want this not to go any further —’ He looked at her, feeling his heart swell at how beautiful she was. ‘You just have to say.’

‘Benjamin.’ His name in her mouth was heavy with love. She touched his shoulder. ‘Do you remember the lesson I gave you in that terrible bar on Pelios Station, before your first date with Nayla?’

‘Of course I do.’

Her smile was wicked. ’Then you know you have to step up your game if we want to talk about this going further.’

‘Challenge accepted,’ he said, and pulled her vest over her head. Underneath she was naked, and he paused just to look at her: the way the lines of spots cradled her breasts, leading down to the curve of her hips, so like a human woman’s, the scar where the symbiont had entered her.

After Curzon had introduced Sisko to Nayla, before they went on their first date, Curzon had told him about the three erogenous zones of Trill women. He had gone over the best ways to stimulate each of them, talking at length about women he had known, what each of them had liked and disliked. Sisko had listened with an engineer’s appreciation for detail, staying quiet until what felt like the fifth hour of how to tap the spots of the neck symmetrically with the right delicacy and in the correct rhythm. He couldn’t hold back any longer.

‘Respectfully, old man, everything you’re telling me sounds like foreplay. What about —’ He made a gesture. Curzon looked appalled. Sisko went on. ‘What comes after?’

Curzon laughed loud. ‘Benjamin, trust me. It’s a waste of time worrying about what comes after if you haven’t mastered what comes before.’ He thumped his hand down on the table. ‘If you don’t make a Trill woman reach _i’takish_ , then it’s not going to go any further. And if you do make her reach _i’takish_ , trust me. She won’t leave you in any doubt about what happens next.’

Now, he ran his hands down Dax’s spots from her neck down her shoulders. He cupped her breasts, circled a nipple, took it in his mouth. The nipples weren’t particularly erogenous for the Trill: this was for his pleasure, not hers. His cock twitched against Dax’s thigh and she murmured approvingly, rubbing against him. In the meantime he let his fingers trail down her back to the base of her spine, just above the curve of her ass. His fingers flickered up and down, pushed teasingly into the hollows between the bones. Dax stretched, tense as a bow. She cried out, and he stopped, unsure of himself.

‘Are you — should I —’

‘No, God, Benjamin, don’t stop. Where did you learn —’

‘You know exactly where I learned. Don’t make me think about it.’

‘Oh —’ She twitched under his fingers. ‘Oh, God. I thought you weren’t _listening_ —’

‘Of course I was listening. I always listen.’ His hands were already moving to her waistband. He undid her loose skirt and slid it off her. Between her legs was only smooth skin. He felt a pang of inadequacy, but as Curzon had told him and as he had discovered with Nayla, he needed to be patient.

He turned her gently onto her belly, traced his way down the backs of her thighs. He bent his head and licked the hollows behind her knees, feeling ridiculous until she spasmed so hard she nearly kicked him in the crotch. He laughed, holding her legs steady.

‘Easy, or I’ll have nothing for you after you reach _i’takish_.’

‘Someone’s getting complacent,’ said Dax dryly.

He teased her for a while more, enjoying how vocal she was — her little yelps of shocked pleasure, her almost-complaining moans when he caught a particularly sensitive spot. Then he let her turn over until they were face to face. He lay on top of her, covering her with his body, enjoying the feeling of skin against skin, his hard cock pressed against her belly. She moved against him, making little noises of frustration.

‘Benjamin, you’re making this all about me. I want to — let me —’ He kissed her neck softly, and she wriggled in protest. ‘You know I’ll be useless in a moment if you keep going like this.’

‘That,’ he said, ‘is exactly my plan,’ and tapped his fingers down the lines of spots on either side of her neck.

Her eyes rolled back, and she arched up into him, putting pressure on his already over-stimulated cock. He swore and tried to concentrate, tapping the symmetric rhythms, responding to whatever made her writhe. She made a series of high, yelping sounds. Then, ’That’s _it_ ,’ she said, wriggling out from underneath him. He laughed at her as she flipped him unceremoniously into his back. ‘I’m making this _fair_ ,’ she protested, moving down him, and took his cock in her mouth.

Trill didn’t generally do this, he knew: the taste of Trill men was considered unpleasant, and as a result they saw the practice as a human peculiarity. Nayla hadn’t offered, and he hadn’t pushed it. Dax started out hesitant, as if she was worried she wouldn’t enjoy it. Then, as she tasted him, he felt her relax. She took the whole of him into her mouth, humming with relieved pleasure. It was the most erotic thing he had ever experienced.

‘Oh,’ he groaned, trying to stop himself from thrusting into her mouth. When he could speak, he gasped, ‘Wait. I don’t know how Trill men are, but if you want me to last much longer —’

She pulled off him and lifted her head, blinking innocently. ‘What?’

He laughed, unable to respond, and she took him in her mouth again, moving in a fast rhythm. He choked. ‘Dax, stop —’

She relented, letting him go. In the low light her lips were wet and her eyes were dreamy. ‘Benjamin. Giving you pleasure, it feels so —’ She threw her head back. Her spots were rippling fast, dark to light to dark. He traced them with a kind of awe.

He took her by the hips and rolled them over again, so she was on her back. ‘Stay still,’ he said.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that an order?’

‘As you rightly pointed out, we’re off duty. But I think it would be in your best interests.’

He worked his way down her body, pausing at her breasts — indulging himself again, nuzzling between and under them, gently biting her right nipple, making her laugh — then kissed the muscled ridge of her belly, fingers tracing around her hip. Dax was breathing shallowly. She knew what he was doing, even though he had never done it before. Nayla hadn’t been joined, so Curzon hadn’t bothered making this part of his lesson. But Sisko, ever the completist, had continued his research after his mentor had left, and found that in joined Trill, there is a region called the _sura malikon_ — the mouth of the soul — where a cluster of nerve endings from the symbiont laces directly with the host’s skin. Being touched there in the right way was, the semi-forbidden encyclopaedia had told him, like a multiple orgasm reverberating through the minds and bodies of every host the symbiont had ever had.

Sisko nosed his way down Dax’s belly, kissing as he went, until she caught a tight breath.

‘Dax,’ he whispered, and traced his tongue around the invisible circle where all the versions of her met.

He was so lost in it, the cool musk of her skin and the feeling of being at the deep point of her, at what made Dax Dax, that it took him some time to notice that she had gone quiet.

He drew back and watched her. She was frozen, her muscles tense, her eyes wide and unfocused. Her breath rasped like she was struggling to breathe.

The first time this had happened, with Nayla, he’d thought something was wrong. He had been ready to jump out of bed and call Sickbay, until she had taken his hand, eyes still vague, and guided it to the two new openings between her legs, soft and wet.

Biology found common solutions, he’d reasoned through his arousal. Penetration, friction, lubrication. Trill men had two members, adapted to the twin _sanatara_ of an aroused Trill woman. Sisko had had to make do with his cock and two of his fingers. Nayla had seemed pleased by the novelty.

The easiest position, he had found, was with the Trill woman on top. Dax had seemed happy with that arrangement at the beginning, so he supposed she wouldn’t mind returning to it, once he was finished with more pressing business.

The most sensitive area was the narrow ridge at the entrance where the two _sanatara_ met. He touched her there, at the wet crux of her new vulnerability, and she shuddered. To his human eyes it looked like she was having a fit, but he pushed down the unease with his by now painful arousal and got down on his knees on the floor, pulling her to the edge of the couch. Her hand drifted across his shoulders, _i’takish_ making her movements jerky and slow. She made a needy sound. He dived forward and tasted her, flicked his tongue along the sensitive ridge. She tasted unearthly, like spice and metal. She groaned deep and spasmed, whispering some untranslatable Trill obscenity under her breath. His cock throbbed painfully. He thought he might come just from listening to her, watching her, tasting her.

‘Benjamin,’ she said, forcing the word out through the semi-paralysis of her _i’takish_. He shook with want. She pulled him to his feet, slow like she was moving through honey, like she was dragging them both to die in sweetness.

‘Dax,’ he said, meaning all of her, everything she had ever been.

He sat back on the couch and pulled her on top of him, feeling the movement come back slowly to her limbs. He let her sway down to rest on him, let her take him in her hand. She stroked him, and he warned her again, pulled back, because he was close now, so close he had to think deliberately about Curzon, cling onto the snag of his dissonance to save him from tumbling over. A ghost of a smile lit her, moved all the way down her with the rippling colour of her spots. He traced the movement of her arousal with his finger. She shook, wriggled, and impatiently pulled him into her.

For a moment he was lost in the shock of it, surrounded by her cool wet depths. Then she moved, and pleasure tugged at him, maddeningly slow, pulling him gradually beyond himself. He slid out of her, into her the other way, making her buck in pleasure. His fingers filled her where his cock didn’t, and she rocked against him, crying out now, the semi-paralysis giving way to desperate motion. He knew they only had a short while now before _i’takish_ passed and fucking her was impossible, but he wasn’t worried: as it was, it would be a miracle if he lasted that long. His climax was already building, and his movements were slipping, his thrusts becoming irregular, his vision dimming to stars and white noise. She took over for him, gaining control as he lost it, burying him in first one then the other of her _sanatara_ , rubbing him across the ridge between until she yelled out with the pleasure of it. That, finally, her cry of joy, pulled him over the edge. He came, messily, halfway in and half out of her, her _sanatara_ already closing up, pushing his fingers and his still-hard cock back out of her. She rubbed against him, bringing him off fully, extending his orgasm until he spasmed once and fell back against the couch, spent.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ he said, with emphasis, when he was able to talk.

Dax’s voice was slow. ‘I think my _future_ hosts felt that.'

He smiled up at her where she stretched out, head thrown back. He reached to twine his fingers in her hair. ‘I’m glad I won’t get to meet them. This is already complicated enough.’

‘It seems so selfish now.’ Dax smirked when he looked at her in puzzlement. ‘My disinterested attempt to make you a great lover of Trill women.’

He broke into laughter. ‘Old man,’ he said, between gasps, ‘how could you have known?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think Curzon would ever have predicted this.’

He lay back, and she lay down with him, rested her head on his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair, feeling her tremble with aftershocks. ‘So,’ he said, ‘What now?’

‘I can hear your voice through your chest.’ Dax smiled dreamily. ‘I love your voice. I always have. Did I ever tell you that? It’s like music.’

‘That’s — wonderful to hear. But I asked you a question.’

‘Oh. Yes. Sorry, _i’takish_ — it floods the system with, with a hormone that acts as a powerful narcotic. I won’t be quite rational for a few hours.’

‘Well. Perhaps we can discuss this later.’ He stroked her hair. He was sleepy, after his climax, quite content to succumb to it here, in Dax’s quarters, among the paraphernalia of her many lives.

‘Benjamin.’ Her dosed voice roused him. ‘Whatever happens. I’m glad we did this together.’

‘Me too,’ he said, kissing the side of her face where the spots were dimming now, going to their usual dappled black. ‘Me too.’


End file.
